'Nothing dirty about turning on a machine': loving your mechanoid in contemporary manga

The relationships in contemporary manga and anime between humans and humanoid machines-robots, androids and physical embodiments of computer progrnms - render permeable the boundary between human and machine, nature and culture, born and made. The distinction between human and machine ceases to be clear-cut as, on the one hand, artificial intelligence entities are depicted with evolving sentience and a capacity for emotional development and, beyond that, for subjective agency, and, on the other hand. people become 'cyborged' under social and/or familial pressures to perform the roles expected of them, and basic human communication is mediated through technology.